Watching Higher Education/Observando a Educação Superior

Hyperculture: The Human Cost of Speed, SBertman, 1998

“Some would argue that covering more ground exposes the speeding driver to more of what is real. But, ironically, the faster we go, the less we truly see. Speed insulates us from organic detail, and space becomes not homes, neighborhoods, and individual lives, but a disembodied medium through which we move. Though more is seen, less is observed, for the depth of our understanding is inversely proportionate to our velocity. Life itself in turn becomes one big “commute,” devoid of that density that only caring and commitment can yield. Indeed, we become so inured to motion that our greatest stresses occur when our movement is impeded against our will — by a long check-out line, a traffic jam, a delayed flight — each a blunted by-product of society’s quest for speed. Meanwhile, those who love to live in the fast lane curse the impediments in their path, never realizing that those impediments would never have existed if only they had chosen a lower speed.”